Written by

Lexy Gross

The Tennessean

Attorney Avon Williams Jr., center, gestures to make a point during a hard hitting speech at a rally July 27, 1968. Williams, who was running for state senator from the 19th District, is surrounded by his supporters in front of the Davidson County Independent Political Council, which sponsored the rally at 1802-B Jefferson St. / File / The Tennessean

Avon N. Williams Jr.

• Dec. 22, 1921-Aug. 29, 1994 • Civil rights lawyer, known for filing the first public school desegregation case in Tennessee

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Avon N. Williams Jr. was a prominent figure in the legal efforts supporting the civil rights movement in Tennessee.

Less than a year into his practice in Knoxville, Williams filed suit for four black students trying to gain admission to graduate school at the University of Tennessee. The case, Gray v. University of Tennessee, filed in 1951, reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and the school ultimately accepted the students into the program.

Williams was among a group of lawyers who filed McSwain v. Board of Anderson County, the first public school desegregation suit in Tennessee, in 1950 — four years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education. By the 1960s, Williams was practicing in Nashville. He joined his mentor, Z. Alexander Looby, and other black lawyers to represent Nashville college students during their sit-in campaign to desegregate the city’s lunch counters.

Williams sued to bring about the 1979 merger of traditionally white University of Tennessee-Nashville with historically black Tennessee State University.

He also founded two organizations while working in Nashville — the Davidson County Independent Political Council and the Tennessee Voters Council. In 1968, he became the first black person to represent the 19th District in Nashville in the state Senate, and served there for 22 years.

Williams died of complications related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1994.